It is now autumn, daylight savings has finished, and I’m officially in my cold and miserable state of mind.
Because I still have a surplus of annual leave that I have to take, I have another two weeks break coming up – and I’ve decided to use them by turning this month into Dark Crystal May. I have a ton of graphic novels from the franchise that I haven’t had a chance to crack open, so now’s the time to do it (I keep seeing those Tumblr posts circulating that warn people not to save the good stuff but to USE it as soon and as often as possible – that goes for books as well as soaps, candles and other luxury items). So I’m looking forward to my return to Thra.
May also means the return of Interview with the Vampire and Doctor Who, and a couple of weeks ago I watched the first few episodes of both Shōgun and X-Men ’97… so I’ll press on with those as well.
I’m also continuing my “girl detectives” themed reading with a couple more titles in that genre, which will probably stretch out into June the way I’m going. Plus, the third books in Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy, and Philip Reeve’s Utterly Dark trilogy. So many things, so little time.
As it happened, I also rewatched Nimona and Enola Holmes 2 this month in order to write-up my Top Twelve list for 2024, but I won’t comment on them here. Ditto Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which was the film chosen for our last movie night at work (bringing us up to a total of three films in a row that involved a. sticking it to the Nazis and b. a woman called Elsa (or Ilsa).
Fairystories (The Piano)
This will be the last show I see for a while, as I’m very much trying to save money, and that means no treats . But as soon as I saw the promotion for this at the start of February, I grabbed my ticket. It purported to be based on the famous Cottingley fairy photographs taken by cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths in 1917.
I’ve been captivated by that story since I first heard of it, and can still remember staring at the photos in a school library book, trying to ascertain whether or not they could be real. The fact that Arthur Conan Doyle was taken in, and that he claimed they had to be real because the photography equipment was too sophisticated for two little girls to make such convincing forgeries, was just the icing on the cake.
So, you can imagine I was a little disappointed on realizing that this was very much inspired by the Cottingley photographs rather than based on it. As in, it involves two children faking a number of fairy photographs in the 1920s... and that’s about it. This musical is about two families: a Yorkshire widower called Edward and his son Henry, and a recently impoverished widow called Elsie and her daughter Polly who have arrived in England from South Africa for a fresh start.
There’s immediate chemistry between Edward and Elsie, though they disagree on the best way to raise their children: Edward is urging his son to put childish things away, while Elsie still hasn’t told the spoiled Polly that her father gambled away their fortune, and they’re going to have to permanently downsize to their “holiday cottage.”
Meanwhile, Henry is convinced that he hears voices down by the stream, to the point where he steals his father’s camera to try and capture proof that something is there. On realizing the attraction between her mother and Edward, Polly helps Henry photograph several “fairies” (actually paper cut-outs) to convince Edward that the stream is a place where the living can contact the deceased, including his late wife, thereby driving a wedge between him and her mother. Yeah, it’s a little convoluted.
Henry and Polly aren’t at all prepared to handle the publicity that comes with the spread of the photographs, especially when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has them verified, but eventually the truth comes out and the new family is reunited. (In a rather strange way, since it’s established that Henry has a crush on Polly, his soon-to-be new stepsister).
Oh, and it turns out that the voice at the stream was Henry’s mother, urging her husband and son to get on with their lives. There’s also a minor subplot in which Polly gets romantically entangled with Doyle’s chauffeur, who turns out to be a bad ‘un.
Suffice to say, there’s a lot going on in this story, and though it’s never bad, it also wasn’t what I thought it would be. But the songs were good, the costumes and set design were on-point and everyone gave it their all. Plus, the production took place in the Piano, a concert hall in Christchurch that I’ve never had the chance to visit before. Another cute touch was that the entire cast went out to Ferrymead (our local “vintage theme park”) in full costume to have photos of themselves taken against a period-appropriate backdrop for the programme.
In hindsight, I enjoyed myself, but would have preferred something that explored the actual historical phenomena of the Cottingley photographs. I suppose that’s what the 1997 movie is for.
Godfather Death by Sally Nicolls and Julia Sarda
Feel like giving your kid nightmares? Then this is the book for you. It actually feels like it’s comprised of three different folktales rolled into one, because I’m sure I’ve read the middle segment of the book (in which Death sits at either the foot or the head of a sick person’s bed to denote whether or not their time is up) as part of a completely different story. Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Nightingale” in fact.
A poor fisherman has nothing to give his newborn son, and so goes out to find him an honest man to be his godfather. He passes God but is furious at His claim that He treats everyone equally, and then the Devil who promises him wealth and security, which he rejects. (“The fisherman was poor. He was cold. He was hungry. But he wasn’t stupid.”)
Finally, he crosses paths with Death, who claims to be an honest man. “To the rich, I bring death. To the poor, I bring death... you cannot bargain with me. You cannot bribe me. You cannot steal what is mine. No one can escape me.” The two agree that he’ll make a perfect godfather for the fisherman’s son.
Death then suggests a way to allow his new godson to grow in prosperity: the fisherman will claim to be a gifted physician, and take a concoction (actually just berry juice) to the homes of those gravely ill. If he sees Death at the foot of the bed, the fisherman will know that the patient will recover, and so take credit for their return to health after the potion is administered. If Death waits at the head of the bed, the fisherman will know that the end is nigh.
It all works well, until the fisherman is called to the king’s bedside. Death await at the head of the bed, and so the fisherman hurriedly calls his men to turn the bed around. Voila, the king returns to full health.
These comprise the first two “mini-stories” of the book. The third has the fisherman gallop away in fear, only to end up on the very clifftop where he first met Death. He’s whisked away into a cave where thousands of candles are burning, and told that his has almost burned out, having cheated Death of his rightful victim. The fisherman proposes sticking his candle on top of another, which extinguishes the flame beneath his – and you guessed it, that was the candle which belonged to his son.
It ends on that sombre note, though without explicit confirmation of his son’s death – only that the fisherman is left: “standing there on the windy clifftop. Alone.” He ends up right where he began, knowing that you can’t cheat Death. You know, for kids!
It sounds rather grim, but there’s also plenty of dark humour at work, such as the conversation between Death and the vicar at the Christening of the fisherman’s son (“Known the family long?” “Since the first man stood on two legs.” “Blimey. I’ve been here since September.”)
Julia Sarda’s illustrations are what really make the book so striking. They’re like a blend of woodcuts and playing cards, with details squeezed into every spare inch of page: devils with bat wings, angels with feathered ones, snakes, poppies, crossed fingers, ravens, skulls, birds white and black, the caduceus, hourglasses, candles, moths – you could drown in all this symbolism. Even Death’s scythe has an untranslated banner on it, reading: “nemini parco.” (I spare no one).
And the story contained here plugs into so many other “death tales”: the danse macabre of The Seventh Seal, W. Somerset Maugham’s “Appointment in Samarra,” Hans Christian Anderson’s aforementioned “The Nightingale,” the episode of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller in which an old soldier manages to cheat Death, and even that episode of Gargoyles, in which the death-god Anubis is called up and calls himself “the ultimate fairness.”
Every child eventually has to grapple with the inexorableness of Death, and their first encounter with the concept might as well be this book.
Claudia and the Middle School Mystery by Anne M. Martin
First of all, I take umbridge with the title: there is no mystery here, as the girls know exactly who the culprit is from the word go. I suppose the real mystery is “why on earth would anyone cheat on a math test by copying the work of the notoriously unscholarly Claudia Kishi?” but a relatively plausible explanation is given for that one.
And why “middle school” mystery? Aside from the fact that’s where the crime takes place, the middle school itself is completely incidental to the plot. A better title would have been Claudia and the Cheater or Claudia and the Math Test Crisis or Why Are Claudia’s Parents So Useless?
Seriously, Claudia and the Middle School Mystery is a weird one.
But whatever, the story starts with Claudia prepping diligently for a math test that will make up a big portion of her overall grade. She’s tutoring with Janine and studying hard, so she’s feeling confident on the day; even more so when she completes the test. The next day she discovers her hard work paid off – she got an A-!
But as the rest of the class leave, she’s called to the front by the teacher, along with Shawna Riverson, the girl who sits beside her. The teacher points out that they got the exact same score... and the exact same questions wrong... in the exact same way. One of them must have cheated by copying the work of the other, and Claudia ends up getting the blame.
Here’s where it gets infuriating. Her parents are called to tell them she’s been caught cheating and that she’ll receive a failing grade. Claudia swears she didn’t cheat, and the Kishis say they believe her... though not with the conviction she would have liked to hear. They offer to go and talk to her teacher, and Claudia tells them not to. She wants to work this out by herself.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if my hypothetical child was accused of cheating on an important test and swore to me that she hadn’t, I’d be heading down to that school to rip someone a new asshole, regardless of how my tween daughter felt about the situation. But the Kishis? They just shrug and get on with things. Seriously? This more than anything demonstrates they probably do think she cheated, as they don’t act like the accusation is even worth challenging.
In any case, Claudia calls in help from the babysitters, who attempt to find evidence that Shawna is the cheater. First, Claudia overhears her talking to her friends in the bathroom while she’s in a cubicle (convenient!) in which they have a horribly contrived As You Know conversation about copying from Claudia’s paper. Sadly, cellphones haven’t been invented yet, which means Claudia can’t record what they’re saying. (However, it does explain why Shawna thought it would be safe to cheat from Claudia – she overheard her talking about how her genius sister was tutoring her).
Later the babysitters break into Shawna’s locker and find a note from a friend congratulating her on her nefarious plan to cheat by copying Claudia’s work (another stupid contrivance – why would anyone potentially incriminate a friend like this?) Unfortunately, they can’t do anything with the note since they’d inevitably be asked where they found it, and have to admit they broke into Shawna’s locker.
The girls then come up with a really dumb plan to guilt-trip Shawna into a confession, by doing things like having Claudia leave a note on her desk that says: “if you can see this, you’re a cheat so you might as well admit it” and saying things like: “can I steal your worksheet for a minute?” and “I don’t want to cheat the teacher out of another copy.” Shawna mostly looks baffled at all of this, and I can’t say I blame her.
Then Claudia comes up with the brilliant plan to ask the teacher if they can re-enact the test, and the other girls have to gently explain to her that all Shawna has to do is not look at Claudia’s test paper the second time around. Come on Claudia, you’re not booksmart, but you’re not meant to be stupid either.
Anyway, the MVP of the book is Janine, who comes through for Claudia when her parents prove themselves to be useless, shoddy failures. She goes to see the school principal, who of course remembers her as a gifted student, and she assures him that Claudia worked hard for the test and isn’t a cheater. The math teacher agrees to give Claudia another chance, so later that day she takes the test for a second time (with slightly different questions, obviously).
At the end of class, Shawna is informed of the situation and told that she too will have to retake the test tomorrow. Just as Claudia is rightfully pondering how unfair it is that Shawna will have at least one extra night to prepare, Shawna cracks under the pressure and confesses. All’s well that ends well.
The inevitable babysitting B-plot involves the Pike triplets getting into trouble for breaking a window during a game of baseball in the backyard. Because they’ve recently discovered The Three Musketeers (or perhaps the concept of snitching) they decide it’s “all for one and one for all” and refuse to tell their parents who is responsible. This means they’re all grounded until someone spills the beans. It stretches on and on until Mallory suggests they simply re-enact the game – that way their parents can see what happened without anyone dobbing in the others.
Again, I’m sure you can see the logical flaw in this scheme. Given that the lead-up to the broken window involved a series of complete flukes and random human errors, including a pitch that’s thrown too wide and a bat-swing that hits the ball at just the wrong angle, it’s impossible to grasp just HOW the trio were able to re-enact the scenario with such perfect accuracy. And why, if it was no one’s fault, did they decide to keep their mouths shut for so long? Everyone in this book is really dumb.
Oh, and in the monthly tally of Mary Anne secretly being a really shit person, we’ve got two big WTFs? from the “kind and sensitive” babysitter: first when Claudia is looking forward to getting her results back because she’s certain she scored well, Mary Anne advises her not to get too ahead of herself. Way to support your friend. And THEN, when the cheating scandal comes out, she actually has the gall to say: “You know, Claud, if you did look at Shawna’s paper, we’d stand right behind you anyway. If you did it, you should confess. You’ll feel better, and we’ll still be here for you.”
Everyone glares at her and how does Mary Anne respond? By crying of course. That’s her go-to tactic for wriggling out of trouble. (I get the feeling the ghost writers secretly hated her).
Mary Anne versus Logan by Anne M. Martin
Another Mary Anne book. Hooray. Okay, she’s not so bad when she’s the narrator, as at least we get front row seats to her thought process whenever she’s about to do something bitchy or hypocritical or passive-aggressive despite being the "shy, sensitive one". Furthermore, in this book she makes an important life decision and sees it through despite how painful it is.
It’s been over thirty books since Mary Anne first started dating Logan, and now she’s beginning to have second thoughts about their relationship. She recalls how unsupportive he was in The Babysitters Island Adventure (I still chortle every time I recall that this involved Dawn and Claudia getting stranded on a deserted island for a couple of days) and during the events of Mary Anne and the Search for Tigger. I mean, sure? I guess a thirteen-year-old boy isn’t going to be at a girl’s beck and call when a cat goes missing, especially if he’s dealing with his own issues at the time.
But the problem is, that’s not the problem in this book. If anything, Logan is being too attentive: showing up to Mary Anne’s house unannounced to invite her on a walk when she just wants to read by the fire, suggesting that she cancel a babysitting job so they can hang out with each other, wanting her to go and see Halloween 3 with him, and then lying to her about his younger siblings needing a babysitter so that she’ll turn up at his place and he can surprise her with a romantic dinner... after Mary Anne has told him she wants to cool things off.
Logan interrupted me by putting his finger to my lips. “Shh,” he said. “Come see.” He took my hand and led me to the dining table. There I saw the table set for a romantic dinner for two. Candles burned in silver holders. A white cloth covered the table. The Brunos’ best china gleamed next to crystal glasses and sparkling silverware. Torture.
As you can probably tell, the conflict is just so manufactured. We’ve never seen Logan act like this before, it’s brand-new behaviour in order to make the story happen. For instance, Mary Anne gets annoyed when he orders for her at a restaurant. No teenage boy does that, and if he does, it’s such a massive red flag it makes him more of a danger than this book actually wants him to be. Then the waiter rushes off before Mary Anne can get a word in – why is he in such a hurry? Then after she tells Logan that she wanted something else to eat, he suggests calling the waiter back, and she says “never mind.” No one in this scenario is acting like a real person.
Later, Mary Anne tells us: “Sometimes [Logan] would feed me tidbits of his lunch, which was romantic, but embarrassing.” Who IS this guy?
As with Dawn and the Older Boy, the ghostwriter doesn’t quite seem to realize how dodgy this behaviour really is: ordering someone’s food for them, ignoring their requests, love bombing – they just want it to be annoying enough in order to reach the point of the story: a break-up.
And break-up they finally do, with Mary Anne coming to the decision and following through, on the basis that she’s losing her independence by being with him (though honestly, Mary Anne usually comes across as the type of girl who would love it when a guy makes decisions for her).
I felt that he didn’t listen to me anymore. He thought only about what he wanted, while I tried to understand him and what he wanted, and to make allowances for him. Not that he would have forced me to dance at a school hop – or would he have? I wasn’t sure. What I was sure about, though, was that he expected me to be available for him at all times. He seemed to have forgotten that I had a family and another life, and that they did not include Logan.
That’s a solid reason for breaking up, I just don’t think it was seeded very well, and required a complete personality transplant from Logan. The series has already covered a lot of this material in Dawn and the Older Boy, and the story could have easily gone with Mary Anne feeling too young to be in a serious relationship, or just wanting a break from being part of a couple as a reason to break-up. Those are legitimate reasons too.
Over in the babysitting B-plot, Jenny Prezzioso is being even more of a spoiled brat than usual thanks to the imminent arrival of her baby sister. Not that her parents are helping, as they’re either ignoring her or expecting her to prepare for the baby by practicing how to change nappies on a doll. Um, she’s like... four. In any case, Mr Prezzioso hires the babysitters to help host a surprise baby shower for his wife (I hope they got paid extra for this) and while Jenny sulks, Mary Anne thinks: “I decided that teaching her manners was not part of my baby-sitting job. So I sat back and enjoyed the rest of the shower.” Good for her.
Some other bits and pieces: I laughed when the babysitters recalled some of their old boyfriends (Toby and Alex from Sea City, Parker from Disneyland, Will from Camp Moosehead, Terry from California) and the fact that they only seem to fall in love during their vacations (or the Super Specials). Karen calls the club and tries to get a sitter for her stuffed animals, which is pretty funny, and later bemoans the fact that she and her boyfriend aren’t getting married on the playground anymore (which doesn’t really tie into anything here but the general theme, and I’m pretty sure was meant to be a minor crossover with a book in the Little Sister series).
Also, at one point the girls answer the phone at a Babysitters Club meeting and arrange a job with a client called “Mrs Ohdner.” Who the heck is that??
Coyote Moon by John Vornholt
Ah, the days when white authors could cheerfully appropriate First Nation culture and mythology to write their pop-culture tie-in novels without any hang-ups. Buffy the Vampire Slayer did end up doing a Native American episode in season four, which was fraught to say the least, but back in the nineties no one gave a second thought to the legends of skin-walkers being commandeered in this way.
Granted, that could have been because only about twelve people ever read these books, but still – we’ve come a long way. And though “it was the nineties” is an explanation and not an excuse, I can see why the idea of skin-walkers would be so appealing to incorporate into a preexisting fictional universe that dabbled in the supernatural.
It’s the summer break between seasons one and two, and the Scooby Gang are looking forward to visiting a local travelling carnival. Already we’re dealing with a continuity error, since Buffy spent that vacation in L.A. with her father. Maybe they could have gotten away with it if this story had been set at the beginning of the summer break, before Buffy heads to the city, but the characters explicitly mention throughout the course of the book that summer is coming to an end. And we know from the events of “When She Was Bad” that Buffy arrives back in Sunnydale right before school restarts. Oh well.
There have been some coyote sightings around Sunnydale, and Buffy is woken up one night to the sounds of a pack running away with a domesticated pet. Willow and Xander don’t seem too concerned about it – coyotes aren’t uncommon, and they do behave rather strangely at times (and not in a supernatural way). Besides, they’re more interested in the attentions of two attractive carneys, Rose and Lonnie.
But Buffy still has doubts, all the more so when she sees a pack of coyotes performing what looks like a strange ritual at a large monument in the local cemetery. Giles researches the place and discovers that the grave belongs to one of Sunnydale’s founding fathers, Spurs Hardaway, who also belonged to a travelling carnival. (I’m pretty sure this also contradicts show canon, as wasn’t Mayor Wilkins the founder of Sunnydale? Either way, I’m always interested to get some extra world-building in this particular franchise).
This early on, the Buffy/Xander/Willow love triangle is in full effect, and they’re still frustratingly obtuse in believing Buffy’s instincts when something they want is in jeopardy (and keep in mind, by this point in the series they’ve already been a. lured to a cemetery, b. dealt with a shapeshifting femme fatale, and c. seen people getting possessed by the spirits of animals. There’s really no excuse for their stupidity in this book). But I liked the original character of Hopscotch, an elderly carney who ends up being a quasi-ally to Buffy, and a carnival setting is always fun.
I’d say it’s better structured than Halloween Rain (the first Buffy tie-in novel) though there’s far less action. Like most of these books, it’s fine but forgettable.
Avatar: The Legacy of Yangchen by F.C. Yee
It’s been a while since I read The Dawn of Yangchen, but I liked it so much that it was one of my top recommendations for 2022, and a lot of it came back to me as I was reading its follow-up. In crafting a story about Yangchen, Yee realized early on that he had to come up with a different kind of challenge for this particular incarnation of the Avatar to face: not something that could be fixed with bending prowess, but a political/economic conundrum that required cunning and street-smarts – neither of which would come naturally to an Air Nomad.
His solution was good old capitalism! Yangchen is horrified by the way workers are exploited in many of the trading cities that are popping up along the coastlines, and yet since the business magnates are operating within the boundaries of the law, what can she do? Appeal to their sense of honesty and altruism? How does an Avatar exert her power and influence in a world made up of bribes and backroom deals and secret transfers of money?
Making matters worse is the emergence of three fire-benders that have mastered the ability to shoot projectiles from their foreheads (like Combustion Man and P’Li in the cartoons) and the way in which they shake up the status quo of the world. A lot of the page count in this book is given over to Yangchen desperately trying to neutralize these individuals as either an asset to the highest-paying shang and/or a threat to the rest of the world.
(Unfortunately, they’re collectively known as Unanimity, a word so hideous I wanted to scream every time I saw it on the page).
Her main opponent in all of this is a young businesswoman called Chaisee, who makes for a fantastic foil. She has a plan, and countermeasures, and seemingly endless resources to call upon, and Yangchen finds it near-impossible to get a foothold in her world.
What ends up happening is Yangchen having to compromise herself to establish a spy network within the hierarchies of capitalists (or “shangs”) that are making their fortunes upon the suffering of others. She’s forced to use guile and cunning to achieve her goals, which has the side-effect of making her give up some of her core beliefs about herself and the world. In many ways, it’s an elegant precursor to the similar decisions and ideals that Aang has to make or sacrifice in his own story, and often it feels in direct conversation with the themes of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Yee doesn’t stint on delving into the nitty-gritty of all this. At one point Yangchen is forced to make a moral gesture by handing over her staff, to the dismay of everyone present (including herself). She’s required to make an endless performance of good humour and cheer despite wanting to scream in frustration most of the time. There are themes of business versus family, rationalism versus morality, personal conviction versus the greater good.
He's clearly also a huge fan of the franchise as a whole, evidenced by the organic way in which elements of the two shows are folded into the story. Yangchen is given two pearls in a dish, which are described as “chasing each other like the koi of the Northern Spirit Oasis.” At another point, she states: “it takes time and effort to develop bending prowess. Bitter work from both student and teacher.” There’s even a sojourn into the Fog of Lost Souls, which featured heavily in The Legend of Korra.
Basically, Yee knows his stuff, and so can do all sorts of cool and fun things with the world he's been handed. At one stage a waterbender manipulates the saliva in his mouth to form tiny needles of ice and spray them into an opponent’s eyes. There’s interesting insight given into the time period in which an Avatar is too young to have an impact on world affairs, which are largely perceived by unscrupulous persons as “windows of opportunity.” He even addresses a question raised in this post: who the heck is making all the food for the Air Nomads while they’re busy meditating and travelling and seeking spiritual enlightenment?
And of course, there's the inherent poignancy of actually seeing the Air Nomads working and thriving and simply existing among the rest of the people of this world. Everything is so rich and detailed and compelling.
Then there’s Kavik, the duology’s deuteragonist. There was some backlash against him after the publication of the first book, due to claims that he took up too much of the book; that as a result, Yangchen wasn’t allowed to be the protagonist of her own story. I get that, but I also found it was a fairly even-handed portrayal of the two characters, and Yangchen definitely takes centre-stage here.
Having betrayed Yangchen to protect his own family, Kavik is now on a mission to regain the Avatar’s trust, proving himself to be complex and interesting enough to justify his presence in this particular tale. To be honest, I think Yee may have initially been a little stymied by Yangchen’s innate goodness, when audiences are still largely captivated by anti-heroe characters, or at least very flawed ones. Kavik is the Zuko to Yangchen’s Aang, though maybe there’s a little Katara in him too, since he’s a waterbender and there are a few moments of potential ship tease between them.
Oh, and the White Lotus also plays a substantial part in these books, though not necessarily as allies to the Avatar. Like her, they look at things within the scope of generations, and they have their own agenda for world peace. If it doesn’t align with Yangchen’s, then they’re not just going to bow down and accept that. In fact, they were the main movers-and-shakers of the plot to usurp the Earth King that has led to Yangchen’s current predicament: attempting to restore open relations between the nations and clamp down on understanded business dealings.
I love how Yee makes nothing simple or easy, so suffice to say I am very, very impressed with these books, which are so much better than they could have been. They’re definitely better than the two Kyoshi ones, and Yee’s ability to describe tricky things like fight scenes and bending prowess has improved. Animation was such a perfect visual medium for bending (as the clunky live-action versions demonstrate) that he does exceptionally well in capturing the movement of both body and element in his action scenes. He also knows the history and the lore and the world-building, the characters are well-rendered, and there are all sorts of bits and pieces from this world’s cultures that add to the story’s Narrative Filigree. Seriously, no complaints here at all.
There’s a fantastically layered story here, one that gives us plenty to chew over regarding how Yangchen could or should have handled things, and how difficult it is to hold onto one’s personal morality when the cause is at stake. As stated, it makes for a beautiful preemptive commentary on the choices that Aang makes: to honour his people by not taking Ozai’s life despite everyone insisting that he should. One day I want to read these books again, perhaps years from now, to kickstart a rewatch of the entire franchise (we’ll have much more stuff by then) and see how well it all comes together in a single storytelling arc.
Oh, and as a final note – I had never heard of the word “convocation” before this month, where I read it in this book and in a Star Wars Old Republic Encyclopaedia that I was browsing through at the same time.
Enola Holmes and the Mark of the Mongoose by Nancy Springer
After the success of the Netflix adaptations, author Nancy Springer has returned for more stories about her eponymous character, the little sister of Sherlock Holmes, even though the original books wrapped up in 2010. Since then there have been three more (plus a short story ebook) that have revisited some of the supporting characters established in those first six books.
Enola is no longer hiding from her brothers Sherlock and Mycroft, but instead enjoying a proper education and a career as a perditorian (someone who finds lost things). She’s approached in her office by a blustery young man who insults her youth and intelligence before leaving just as quickly. Later that same day, Enola spots him with a woman who is asking pedestrians if they’ve seen her missing brother, and soon comes to discover that he’s none other than Rudyard Kipling.
Her stubbornness leads her to take up the challenge to find the missing man for herself, something that is only partly inspired by Kipling’s rude treatment of her. This leads her on an investigation that involves more disguises, a rabid dog, some old friends, and a mysterious underground organization identified by the mark of the mongoose.
As always, it’s a solid enough mystery with a keen eye on the subject of women’s rights in Victorian London. Enola makes her way through society by depending on the friendships and networks of other women, and by using her perceived weaknesses (being overlooked, being treated as intellectually inferior) as advantages.
But Springer tends to go a little overboard with her prose this time around, tipping into very complex sentence structure and vocabulary that feels at-odds with her straightforward protagonist. See here:
Striding up Maiden Lane came a gentleman resplendent in a white tie, white waistcoat, white orchid in his buttonhole, the tails of his cutaway flying like oriflammes as he progressed to the rescue. I plastered my personage even deeper into concealing shadows, for the newcomer was the selfsame bristling lummox who had accosted me in my office that afternoon.
If I had sprinted up and down Maiden Lane, I could have kept myself warmer, but would have made myself conspicuous, whereas I quite wanted to escape notice from the household. Therefore, with martyred devotion to my chosen perditorial profession, I waited, hands tucked beneath my arms, the remainder of my personage quaking with chill.
On Southamption Street, which only hours ago had bustled with shoppers and pedestrians, with cabs and carriages, with orderly boys who scurried about, plying scoops and buckets, beneath the very hooves of the horses, trying to pick up their all-to-frequent deposits – on Southampton Street now, effluvium of such equine deposits remained, but street and pavements lay mostly empty except for a few passing cabs.
Am I being too harsh? Isn’t it good that this book includes words a young reader might have to look up? I mean, I didn’t know what an “oriflamme” was before reading this story, and it’s not like I didn’t understand what was being said anyway. But at the same time, it feels like Springer has broken out the thesaurus, and I don’t think Enola has ever been this verbose a narrator before, even if you take into account her love of words.
As always, the mystery itself is a mix of genuine detective work and sheer dumb luck, while Springer throws in a couple of nods to the Netflix movie (at one point Enola’s first-person narrative states: “Twas I!”) and some reappearances from past characters such as Florence Nightingale and a pair of tin sellers.
And somehow I started reading this with the impression it would be the very last book, though having finished, it doesn’t feel conclusive – and we have a possible Moriarty sighting for future instalments. Or at least a Moriarty-type character. The thing I’ve liked about these books so far is that Moriarty isn’t involved in the stories, and if Enola is going to get a personal nemesis, it should be one that fits her.
In that sense, perhaps Springer is onto something, as the Moriarty analogy is someone who – like Enola – looks out for women and the poor, but does so in a very different way than our girl detective. Time will tell when it comes to how all this will play out...
Random fact: the last Enola Holmes book I read was in the same month as the first Avatar Yangchen book (see here) which again makes this a month for two book covers featuring a young woman staring at the reader.
Aggie Morton Mystery Queen: The Seaside Corpse by Marthe Jocelyn
Unlike Enola Holmes, it wasn’t until the final few pages and the author’s afterword that I realized this was to be the last Aggie Morton book. It’s a bit of a shame, as I feel there’s still plenty of juice left in this particular series, and if this is the end, it’s a somewhat lacklustre finish.
The premise of the series is to create a fictionalized account of Agatha Christie growing up in the early 1900s, in which she solves mysteries and meets all the early inspirations of her later novels. Predominately among these is a young Belgian refugee by the name of Hector Perot: fussy and fastidious, but immensely intelligent and loyal. It’s an adorable friendship, one without a hint of romance between them (as with Poirot himself, Hector comes across as an admirer of women, but deeply asexual) and the two solve the murders that inevitably crop up wherever they go.
Drawing on the details of Agatha’s childhood, such as the death of her father and the cultural mores of Edwardian England, the author’s supporting cast also involves Grandmother Jane, who is clearly an expy of Jane Marple, and a young lad called Arthur, standing in for the reliable but not-particularly-bright Hastings (I have to admit, I didn’t grasp who he was meant to be until the afterword told me).
Aggie and Hector are invited to stay at a seaside encampment in Lyme Regis to assist a group of real palaeontologists excavate an ichthyosaur skeleton from the rocky seaside cliffs. Both children are intrigued by the activity and the work, and by the fact they’ve been given the chance to learn the rudimentary skills of the profession. But the people in charge of the dig – Professor Blenningham-Crewe and his much younger wife Nina – are difficult to get along with. He’s haughty and overbearing, and she’s a spitfire who grows increasingly bitter that her husband takes all the credit for her work.
Also on hand is a circus performer eager to buy the ichthyosaur for his travelling sideshow, and a wealthy Mexican-Texan businessman who wants it for his private collection. Then there’s the staff: the cheerful Helen and her overprotective father, the secretive secretary Sylvia Spinns, the two strong-but-silent Russian workmen – all of whom have their own motivation for being there.
Of course, a dead body will eventually be found, and the question of murder raised.
My main issue with this murder-mystery is that ultimately (SPOILERS) there isn’t one. Turns out that the victim just accidentally fell off the cliff. All the pieces of evidence that pointed to murder were just incidental.
I mean... sure? I guess that’s a perfectly valid twist. On the other hand, if you sign up for a book series that’s about Agatha Christie and has the word “mystery” in the title, one that’s set in an encampment filled with viable suspects and a victim that everyone had a motive to kill... you kind of expect the chance to solve a murder.
The Seaside Corpse then, is to be enjoyed more as a historical novel than a mystery, one along the lines of A.M. Howell’s historical fiction for young readers. I enjoyed some of the real-life context that surrounded the main story, such as the suffragette movement, the scientific discoveries of the time, and the frequent mentions of Mary Anning’s work in the field of palaeontology. (I must get around to that Kate Winslet/Saoirse Ronan period drama on that very subject one of these days). And of course, the removal of the ichthyosaur is inspired by Christie’s later experiences in the Middle East with her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan.
It's both ironic and amusing that this fictionalized take on Agatha is such friends with Hector Perot, the imagined inspiration for Hercule Poirot, since it’s widely known that Christie rather hated this character. But what’s depicted here is a very touching friendship, and you should know by now that I always appropriate platonic male/female friendships in fiction.
I also really enjoyed the character of Gus Fibbley, an unscrupulous journalist who is actually a woman in disguise. The interesting thing about her is that her tactics in getting “the scoop” are deeply dishonest, and Aggie staunchly disapproves of how she does her business. It’s interesting to have a character that you want to respect for her gumption, but who also gets up to some very amoral activities (and you get the definite sense that she’s not just hiding her gender for the sake of having a job in a male-dominated field – she likes the fact that being a man lets her get away with her bad behaviour).
It seems as though it’s farewell to Agatha Christie for now, but it’s been a fun four-book series.
The House of Eyes by Patricia Elliot
Our third and final girl detective of the month (and I use that word to denote her youth, not her gender) is Constance Clementine Carew, or “Connie” for short. There are seemingly only two books in this series, and I’m not sure whether it was because the author planned it to be a duology from the start, or whether she just lost interest fairly quickly.
In any case, Connie’s story is more melodrama than mystery – not bad, but definitely not on the same level as Wells and Wong, Enola Holmes, Aggie Morton or The Sinclair’s Mysteries, all of which utilize the same “plucky young girls solve mysteries in a period locale” template. Think instead of the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency or Rose Raventhorpe series – a bit more outlandish and lurid. In fact, there’s quite an air of Wilkie Collins about this book, who I believe even gets a shout-out at one point.
Orphaned Connie Carew lives with her aunts Dorothea and Sylvia in a rundown old London house, nursing dreams of becoming an anthropologist. The household’s finances are controlled by Connie’s step-uncle Mr Thurstan, Dorothea’s second husband, whom she married after the disappearance of her daughter Ida when she was just a toddler. Since then, an air of grief has permeated the entire family.
But after Connie accompanies her aunts to a séance held by a local clairvoyant, the family is visited by a spirit who announces that Ida will soon return to the household. And sure enough, a few days later a young girl applies for the position of under-maid, introducing herself as Ida and in possession of a locket that belonged to Dorothea’s long-lost daughter.
Everyone is overjoyed at her return, though Connie nurses her suspicions about who she really is, especially when some of the details in her story don’t add up. And so the investigation begins, with many of the staples of the time: the suffragettes, the obsession with spiritualism, the scientific discoveries, and the tensions of the class divide.
I mean, it’s fun. There’s nothing wrong with it. But Connie herself isn’t as well-drawn as the likes of Aggie and Enola, and the plot itself (as you can probably discern just by reading the above summary) is more of a period melodrama than a proper mystery.
Murder at Snowfall by Fleur Hitchcock
I’ve read each of Hitchcock’s Murder books as they’ve been released, and they make for pleasantly diverting thrillers for young readers. I’ve no idea whether the author is related to Alfred Hitchcock in any way, but I can easily imagine some of her stories being adapted by him: they’re just the right blend of simple plots, social intrigue and elaborate action sequences (here for example, the protagonists end up in an animal park during a blizzard and get chased by lions. I could see that happening in a Hitchcock film).
There’s also usually an interpersonal relationship between two youngsters that don’t get along, which is naturally resolved in the investigation of the mystery. In this case, it’s stepsiblings Lucas and Ruby, two very different highschoolers who are shoved together (even more so) when they happen across a grey office cabinet on the side of the road with a body inside.
Said body belongs to Doctor Price, who has been missing for several days. But even before the discovery of the body, unsettling things have been happening to the employees of his GP clinic, including Ruby's mother: their homes broken into, the clinic burned to the ground, and the disconcerting feeling that they’re being followed.
But outgoing Ruby and antisocial Lucas are on the case, even if it means putting up with each other. Hitchcock makes good use of the winter season, in that it provides the added danger of exposure and slippery roads, but she also adds a fairly hefty subplot involving a high school production of Hairspray. I know very little about this musical, so most of the references were completely lost on me, and it doesn’t end up connecting to the murder in any way.
Ah well. A light, fun read, though I honestly think the whole series would do well (if not better) as a series of low-budget television movies for tweens.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
After the success of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse series, there was inevitably a deluge of Slavic-inspired YA fantasy that flooded the market in its wake (just like all the dystopias that followed The Hunger Games and the vampires that followed Twilight). Among them, Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy stood out as one of the best bandwagon-hitchers, and having read the first two books, I’ll attest to the veracity of this.
I’d already ready Arden’s Small Spaces quartet (which was published after this trilogy) and liked it a lot, though those books are aimed at a much younger audience. In my public library at least, The Bear and the Nightingale is classified as adult fiction, which I’d say has more to do with its length than its content.
Storywise, it treads a familiar fantasy path, what with its headstrong heroine, tension between Christianity and “the old ways,” fairy tale tropes (wicked stepmother, rule of three, favours from a god, talking animals) and cultural milieu drawn from a very specific time and place to build its fictional setting. There were not a lot of surprises here, but the reward is in the telling itself.
I can’t say how or why exactly, but on reading this book I felt very “locked in,” to the point where I’d need a couple of seconds to come back to myself when the lunch hour ended and I had to get back to work. Arden takes her time in setting up the pieces on the board: the history of a country, the dynamics of a family, the political landscape around them, and preternatural forces hovering on the periphery of things.
The unhurried setup pays off, as with each turn of the page you can sense the plot-threads being gradually pulled together, though I have to say it’s perhaps a little too leisurely at times. For much of the page count the story felt like a prologue to whatever Arden had planned for the second book in this trilogy, and so I was a little surprised when the threat that had been hovering over the characters for the duration of the book was disposed of quite neatly in a few rather rushed concluding chapters (come to think of it, the same thing happened in Empty Smiles, the last book of the Small Spaces quartet).
Clearly my expectations were at odds with what Arden was actually writing, but the slow-burn becomes an unexpected wildfire towards the end, somewhat undermining the dread mustered throughout the book by the approaching evil of the book’s antagonist in contrast to his very abrupt demise.
There’s a similar sort of tension in her cast of characters. At first, there seems to be a lot of stock characterization at work. Naturally Vasya is wild and outspoken and not like the other girls. She’s one of those “definitely not beautiful, but every man wants her anyway” type of female characters. Of course the death-god Morozko is captivated by her spirit and starts to fall in love with her, because it’s not like immortal gods with untold power have anything better to do than become infatuated with teenage girls.
Vasya’s father is big and brawly, her stepmother is paranoid and embittered, the priest is a zealous fundamentalist. And yet, Arden also manages to transcend these archetypes. For example, Konstantin the priest may be antagonistic, but he’s also sincere in his beliefs. I generally have very little interest in the archetype of the corrupt priest or religious fanatic (there’s plenty of them in real life, and they seldom translate to very interesting characters), but this guy is ambiguous enough that you’re not sure where he’s going to end up, and self-aware enough that maybe he can be reached.
For all her stereotypical "feistiness", Vasya still feels like a real person, and in the careful setting up of the family dynamics, Arden avoids the usual “girls rule, boys drool” cliché by surrounding Vasya with loving and protective brothers – not to mention a half-sister who isn’t a spoiled, cossetted brat. As for her stepmother Anna, she remains rather one-note, but I ended up feeling desperately sorry for her regardless.
As for the story, it begins long before Vasya’s birth, when her grandmother rode into Moscow in rags and upon a grey horse, only to eventually marry the Prince Ivan and bear him a daughter, Marina. It is Marina who ends up being Vasya’s mother, having married the boisterous Pyotr and bearing him several children before Vasya. Though older by this point, she ignores the warnings of others and will only say: “I want a daughter like my mother was.”
And it is Pyotr himself who is approached by a mysterious stranger in the market, and given a strange sapphire necklace on a silver chain that is intended for his unborn daughter. Uncertain what it means, Vasya’s father hides it away until she’s old enough to inherit it.
Although Vasya’s birth ends up taking the life of her mother, she grows up in a loving-enough household, with her brothers and sisters and old nurse Dunya. More mysteriously, Vasya is aware of the multitude of spirits that live in the house and countryside, communing with them by leaving offerings of food and occasionally her own blood, and learning valuable skills from them in return.
All this changes when the priest Konstantin arrives. Turns out it’s not a pagan god that disrupts the household, but a handsome and passionate priest with a talent for both preaching and painting holy icons. His influence over the community ends up weakening the old spirits that protect the various homes – and without their strength, older and more dangerous powers start to awaken in the woods.
It reminded me a little of how ye olde medieval folks would slaughter cats they suspected of witchcraft, not realizing these felines were keeping the rat population under control, and therefore the plague that was carried by them. In this sense, it comes down to Vasya and her singular worship of the household spirits to keep her home safe.
Since doorstopper fantasies hold no appeal to me, I appreciated that Arden committed to a singular setting and a specific ambience without bogging everything down in the minutia of world-building. There’s also a feminist subtext regarding the difficulties and injustices women faced in this era without making it overt (no one bemoans being a woman, but the phrase “the lot of women” in regards to what’s expected of them is brought up a lot).
Like I said, I wasn’t completely captivated by this story, perhaps because by this point I’ve consumed so much Slavic fantasy, but it was engaging and surprisingly engrossing throughout. There is depth and care and detail given over to this world, and plenty of underlying hints that there’s more going on with Vasya’s heritage and her innate abilities. But then, that’s for the next book in the series to delve into...
The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
The sequel to the above picks up almost directly where the last one left off, with Vasya galloping away on the back of her magical talking horse, and realizing that a life out in the wilderness comes with its downsides: freezing temperatures, little to eat, and no way to defend herself against bandits roaming the land. But she’s determined to see what she can of the world, and any discomfort seems worth it for the sake of her newfound freedom.
Arden weaves in a few threads that were introduced at the beginning of The Bear and the Nightingale; namely Vasya’s older siblings Sasha and Olga – the former a monk and trusted advisor to the prince, and the latter a grand lady carrying her third child. Not seen since the beginning of the first book, Vasya’s journey leads her back into the lives of these two characters, creating no small amount of upheaval on the way. There’s also some more exploration of Vasya’s heritage regarding the powers she possesses and the mystery of her grandmother's identity, which naturally ends up being the most interesting part of the book.
Arden spreads her narrative wide across many different plot strands. There are bandits in the forest regions that are sacking villages and taking young girls captive. There’s Vasya herself, who is experiencing urban life for the first time and attempting to maintain her disguise as a boy. There’s Sasha and Olya, who know their sister’s secret and are desperate to conceal it from their cousin Dmitrii, the young prince of Moscow. There’s court intrigue, and visitations from various spirits, and Vasya’s own mysterious heritage. There’s the mysterious Lord Kasyan, who is taking an unpleasantly vested interest in Vasya’s fortunes, and the death-god Morozko, who is unable to extract himself from his preoccupation with his young... prodigy? Ward? Devotee?
The relationship is difficult to define, and you’ll be unsurprised to learn that the budding maybe-romance between Vasya and Morozko didn’t interest me much. Fortunately, it doesn’t take up a lot of the page count either, and it’s also not as straightforward as it appears. Turns out that Morozko needs Vasya for a specific purpose, and she’s not happy about it when she finds out.
Basically, a lot of stuff is happening, and Arden is to be commended for keeping all her balls in the air until everything finally collides in the book’s final chapters. As with its predecessor, it’s a satisfying read and I was surprised at just how quickly I was churning through the pages. The shift from a rural to an urban setting (albeit as “urban” as one can get in the 1300s) was a logical development, and for a middle instalment in a trilogy, it thankfully moves the story forward and provides ample character growth for its protagonist, as opposed to just spinning its wheels between points A and B.
Also, these books have gorgeous covers. I think I’ll devote an entirely separate post to appreciating them.
Donkeyskin (1970)
This month brought on a sudden burning desire for old school fairy tales of the seventies and eighties, many of which I’d never seen before. This one is adapted from that old family favourite, Charles Perrault’s Donkeyskin, about the king who wants to marry and have sex with his own daughter. [/sarcasm]
Unsurprisingly, I’ve only seen it adapted a handful of times: this film, an episode of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller called “Sapsorrow,” and a Robin McKinley book called Deerskin. Apparently a cult classic in France, Donkeyskin (or Peau d'Âne) is one of the most bizarre films I’ve ever seen – naturally, I loved every second of it.
In a fairy tale kingdom, the king is devasted when his wife dies, leaving behind only a single child: a daughter. On her death bed, the queen gives him only one stipulation: that if he remarries, it must be to a woman who is more beautiful than herself. That’s a weird condition, and one that seems too subjective to be of much use – but then, this is a movie that takes the importance of beauty completely seriously. Everyone is totally straight about the value of attractiveness.
The king doesn’t know what to do, until he realizes that only one woman passes muster: his own daughter. Proposing marriage, she manages to hold him off by demanding the completion of three impossible gowns: one that looks like the weather, one like the moon, and one like the sun. (Though honestly, she's not all that opposed to the idea of marrying daddy). When the king successfully follows through on these requirements, the princess turns to her fairy godmother, who arranges her escape from the castle.
As part of her disguise, the princess asks her father to bring her the skin of the palace donkey that poops gold and keeps the kingdom prosperous. Why? Not sure. I mean, that seems like the elimination of a pretty valuable asset.
She ends up in a faraway kingdom, rather alarmingly draped in the skin of a donkey, and judged by all to be too dirty and ugly to be noticed. It’s not until the prince returns home and notices the princess in her hovel (sans donkeyskin and dressed in one of her magical gowns) that he realizes her true worth as a conventionally attractive person. Whew!
When it comes to this reverse-Oedipus story, I’m really just here for the vibes. The film has an aesthetic that can’t be denied: the grainy quality of pre-digital film mingled with the candy-coated garishness of the decade, with giant frocks, practical special-effects, and a range of servants who are painted either solid blue or red. The king’s throne is a giant stuffed cat, doorways are inexplicably so low that people have to duck to go through them, and the late queen is buried in a giant glass bauble.
The fairy godmother sings a song about how it’s not a good idea to marry your father. There are plenty of old school “magic” tricks, such as playing film in reverse to make falling look like flying. The love song between the prince and princess involves the lyrics: “we’ll go together to the buffet/we’ll smoke a pipe in secret/we’ll stuff ourselves with pastries...” During the prince and princess’s marriage ceremony, the fairy godmother turns up in a helicopter.
You just can’t find this kind of entertainment these days, and no one is in a hurry to make more movies based on fairy tales in which fathers want to f*** their daughters. (Seriously, what kind of Freudian mess is going on with that one?)
The Slipper and the Rose (1976)
This retelling of Cinderella is a whopping two-and-a-half hours long, with songs by the Sherman Brothers (of Mary Poppins fame) and no actual rose to be seen. A slipper, yes. A rose, not so much. Thanks to the lengthy run-time, the story itself is a meandering, drawn-out affair, filled with narrative cul de sacs and superfluous subplots and plenty of contrived obstacles on the way to true love, not to mention lots of very bland songs.
Which is to say that I find it fascinating, and despite not being part of the annals of my childhood, it feels as though it could have been. There are some interesting variations on the familiar fairy tale throughout: it actually begins with the burial of Cinderella’s father (which has the odd side-effect of ensuring that Cinderella is not a scullery maid for a very long period of time) and takes the time to focus on the prince, who is established as a proper character long before Cinderella shows up (in fact, we’re about twenty minutes in before we get our first good look at her).
Most significantly, the real main character of the piece is actually the fairy godmother. We get to see her pulling a Secret Test of Character, grappling with her giant workload when it comes to helping out other fairy tale characters, and showing up at the end to finally put things to rights. And she’s played by Annette Crosbie, who is a delight.
As Cinderella, Gemma Craven is very cute and winsome, though an early scene which has her straight-out tell her stepfamily: “I hate you all,” doesn’t go anywhere or help define her personality in any way – in fact, her stepmother and sisters don’t get a lot of screentime in this adaptation. She spots the prince visiting his family’s crypt well before he notices her at the ball, and towards the end there’s a full-blown song in which she tells the castle servants to inform the prince she’s running away for any reason but that she loves him, after she’s been convinced that their union would only bring war to the kingdom. By this point the audience is ready for the happily ever after, so it’s a bit of a shock to have Reality Ensue this late in the film’s run-time.
(For the record, I didn’t recognize anything on Craven’s IMDB page – except for her appearance on Robin of Sherwood as one of the evil sorcerer’s concubines. How’s that for a deep dive?)
It’s inordinately amusing to me that the actor playing the prince is called Richard Chamberlain, but taking the opportunity to flesh out this character is always a welcome gesture. He’s a little smarmy and whiny here, but he has a passing resemblance to Sam Reid’s Lestat, and is introduced complaining at length about his arranged marriage (it’s always nice to see a male character take umbrage at such things).
As with Donkeyskin, the costumes and sets are rather garish, but that ends up being part of the charm. Most of the songs are completely pointless, including one that has the king and his retinue sing about protocol while doing some synchronized marching about, and another which involves the prince and his friend prancing about the family mausoleum while singing about the royal family’s ancestors; an extended sequence that has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the rest of the film.
For every lovely sequence, such as Cinderella fleeing from the ball while her dress gradually shifts back into rags as she descends the castle stairwell in a shower of rose petals, there’s an extremely strange one, such as a troupe of ballet dancers dressed as mice showing up for a single tiny scene before they’re transformed into the horses that pull Cinderella’s carriage... which doesn’t look anything like a pumpkin.
In all, it’s a rather strange movie. Most of the most recent fairy tale adaptations try to be as mainstream as possible, which has the unfortunate side-effect of stripping the original tales of their inherent weirdness. Few features can resist Hollywoodizing the story: gone are the dark Freudian undertones in favour of happy songs and colourful spectacle and simplistic depictions of true love. This one straddles that line, with a fairly straightforward take on the romance and pageantry, but also some modern humour and non sequiturs, especially in the songs. I suppose only the Sherman brothers could give us lyrics such as: “we are bored with your defiance of connubial alliance” and “yes, we must be protocoligorically correct.”
A lot of ink has been spilled on the fairy tale of Cinderella, cross-examining it from a feminist or wish-fulfilment perspective. It all makes for some interesting reading, but ultimately I think most people just want to see a nice girl get her happy ending with a decent guy – and the fact that she has an abusive family made up entirely of women is somewhat alleviated by the warmth and kindness of her fairy godmother. The Slipper and the Rose gets that, and perhaps its most notable feature is cutting down the focus on Cinderella’s stepfamily in order to heighten the focus on the participation of said fairy godmother.
Panna a Netvor (1978)
According to the subtitles on the YouTube upload of this film, Panna a Netvor translates to The Virgin and the Monster, which is an intriguing variation on Beauty and the Beast since it gestures at a take on the story in which the characters are more defined by what they are rather than how they look (though granted, beautiful and beastly can also refer to the state of a person’s soul).
But considering this film starts with a montage of villagers cheerfully taking a variety of animals to the slaughter, it’s safe to say there’s plenty of deconstruction going on here. The story follows the familiar beats of the fairy tale: a merchant loses his fortune, requiring his family to downsize their lifestyle, and leading him to the decision to sell the portrait of his late wife.
He goes out in search of his lost livelihood, only to stumble upon the Beast’s castle. There he enjoys the hospitality of the place: a warm fire, delicious food, opulent gifts – but makes his fatal mistake the following morning when he plucks a rose from the garden. The Beast appears and demands recompense for his thievery; if one of the merchant’s three daughters comes of her own free will, then his life will be spared.
Of course, the story only really begins when Belle (here called Julie) comes to the castle and begins her life with the Beast. But already there are some fascinating tweaks made to the traditional story. First of all, I loved that it is the Beast himself who causes the merchant’s wares to be lost to the icy river – it means that he’s directly responsible for the merchant reaching his castle in search of them, and so by extension, the arrival of Beauty as well. It brings a full-circle quality to the proceedings that works beautifully.
Secondly, the film has no interest whatsoever in providing us with the Beast’s backstory. For all we know, he was born a strange human/bird hybrid, and has been grappling with his animalistic side for his entire life. Even the Jean Cocteau film threw in a last-minute “fairies did it” explanation of the Beast’s condition. Here, it remains a mystery. There is no curse, no clause – just the Beast gradually gaining a sense of humanity through his interactions with Julie.
Speaking of Cocteau, in many ways this film exists as a fascinating bridge between his 1946 film and Disney’s 1993 version. Panna a Netvor borrows several ideas from its predecessor, most notably the living statues and moving furniture (performed by actors in elaborate costumes/makeup) but there’s also an emphasis on the internal struggle of the Beast that feels like a precursor for what Disney does with the character. This Beast is haunted by what sounds like a demonic voice, who is constantly urging him to give into his baser instincts and kill Julie.
Is it truly an evil force, or just the Beast’s internal dialogue? The constant “beast-vision” in which long scenes are shot from the point-of-view of the Beast suggests the latter, but we never really find out for certain.
A dialogue between the two main characters starts, in which Julie is told things like: “every woman has the power to make the man she loves beautiful,” while the Beast watches her sleep and obsesses over the portrait of her mother (which the merchant left behind and naturally bears a deep resemblance to Julie herself). She has dreams of dancing with a handsome prince in a hall full of doors and mirrors, and is drawn to several murals on the wall which seem to depict the Beast’s true form (it’s a long time before she actually sees him).
The whole film is a visual treat because, not in spite, of its grainy, earthy, low-res quality. It’s just such a relief to see action take place in actual sets or on location for a change, and there’s some really striking shots throughout. I’ve also never seen the Beast depicted in this way before – and I’ve seen plenty. Various artists have taken their inspiration from lions, warthogs, bears, even a stag walking on his hindlegs in one picture book, but I’ve never seen a bird-like Beast before. With a hooked beak and talons, he certainly looks intimidating, and it seems like the actor had a lot of fun swishing his cloak around.
Thanks to the subject matter, the period in which it was filmed, the aesthetic and its strange, dreamy quality, I found the whole thing fascinating. Of all the films on this month’s log, this is the one I’m most looking forward to revisiting.
Belle et la Bête (2014)
How can a movie that’s so stunningly beautiful be so emotionally empty? It’s nothing short of a tragedy. Every single frame is exquisite: the detail of the sets, the lavishness of the costumes, the richness of the colours – this has got to be one of the most visually sumptuous films I’ve ever seen in my life. The compositions, the ambiance, the quiet mystery that lies over everything. You can almost smell the roses through the screen.
If a fairy godmother allowed me to enter any fictional realm, I’d pick this one – no hesitation. It’s worth watching for its beauty alone. Which makes it all the more profoundly disappointing that this take on Beauty and the Beast doesn’t have much to say about the pivotal romance. In fact, this Belle and Beast only spend about fifteen minutes of screentime together, if that. They have two extremely fraught conversations, one ballroom dance (which is just a bribe that Belle offers in exchange for the chance to visit her family) and a rather strange chase sequence in which she flees the castle, is pursued by the Beast onto frozen lake, and almost killed when she falls through the ice.
There is no exploration of how or why they fall in love. Like, at all. We’re in full-blown Strangled by the Red String territory here, and when Belle breaks the curse by admitting that she loves the Beast, it comes across as random, not cathartic.
So, if not the iconic romance between the beauty and the beast, then how does the film fill up its screentime? It begins with the traditional turn of events: a wealthy merchant loses his ships at sea, his family (this time comprised of three boys and three girls, including Belle) are forced to relocate to the countryside, only for word to reach them that one of the ships may have been salvaged. After becoming lost in a snowstorm, the merchant finds himself in an abandoned castle, where food and drink and wealth is seemingly his for the taking.
As he leaves, he spots a rose growing in the garden. Remembering his youngest daughter’s request for a rose on his return, he takes it, only for the Beast to appear and demand her life in exchange for his.
You know all this. What this version adds is a subplot involving Belle’s brother Maxime, who adds to the family’s financial difficulties through his extensive gambling debts, specifically owed to a crook called Perducas (who is actually the man who chases the merchant into the forest in the first place). In the film’s climax, Maxime ends up betraying his sister by leading Perducas and his gang to the Beast’s castle, where they begin to ransack the place in search of treasure.
Now, this isn’t the first time that a villain has been added to a Beauty and the Beast retelling in order to add a little drama, the most obvious ones being Jean Cocteau’s Avenant and Disney’s Gaston, who are suitors to Belle and foils to the Beast (indeed, Avenant and the Beast are played by the same actor in the 1946 film). But Perducas has absolutely nothing to do with anything, not even on a thematic or symbolic level. The two lead characters don’t interact with him in any significant way, and aside from chasing the merchant into the forest (and therefore the Beast’s castle) he has no narrative purpose whatsoever.
(The film even has a sub-subplot about his girlfriend, a fortune teller whose dire warnings about his fate are duly ignored).
The other massive subplot of the film is the flashback sequences detailing how the Beast came to be cursed in the first place. Turns out that he was once married to a queen who asked him to give up his obsession with hunting a golden hart in the forest. He refuses, and when the creature is finally felled, he discovers to his horror that it was his wife all along, a nymph who was changed into a mortal woman by her father so that she could experience love. As a result, he and his entire court are cursed by the forest-god until another woman can love him in his beastly visage.
Belle discovers this backstory through several visions shown to her via mirrors and reflections throughout the castle, and though they’re beautifully realized, it’s a bit of an eye-opener to realize that the Beast probably shares more screentime and romantic scenes with his dead first wife. I didn’t time it, but it certainly feels that way. A Beauty and the Beast in which the main love story uses Belle as a convenient escape clause to someone else’s epic romantic tragedy. That’s... quite a choice.
Vincent Cassel is well-cast as the Beast, as there’s something feral in his face even without the CGI makeup, while Léa Seydoux has the beauty and the spirit and the determination to be a match for any beast... if only they had really given her one. As with the Beast having more of a connection to his deceased wife, I felt that Belle’s relationships with her father, sisters, and three brothers (who really come through for her in the end) are better developed.
There are a few other odd choices, such as the framing device being Belle telling the story itself to her two children, with the illustrations in her book coming to life (there’s little effort made to disguise the fact that it’s her, which kind of removes any suspense from the story itself) and the presence of a pack of CGI bobble-headed beagles that were also transformed by the curse.
But as stunningly gorgeous as it all is, without any depth whatsoever given over to the love story, it remains beautiful to look at... and that’s all.
The Adventures of Maid Marian (2022)
Yes, I shared this movie with a friend. And as it turns out, he noticed a few more hilarious slip-ups, so feel free to visit my updated summary of the entire feature.
The Princess (2022)
That was... not good. And not even in the fun “so bad it’s good” way of say, The Adventures of Maid Marian. And yet in saying that, there are plenty of terrible kung fu movies out there which only exist for the sake of making their young male audience go: “aw, cool!” so why shouldn’t the girls have an equally mindless one?
The titular princess (who is never given an on-screen name) wakes up in a tower to find herself in shackles and a wedding dress. As she begins to fight her way out, flashbacks provide the paper-thin backstory: the kingdom had no male heir, so the princess’s father arranged a marriage to a suitable nobleman. After she tearfully left him at the altar, he mounts an attack and takes the kingdom by force.
The titular princess (who is never given an on-screen name) wakes up to find herself shackled in a wedding dress in a tall tower. As she begins to fight her way out, flashbacks give us the paper-thin backstory: the kingdom had no male heir, so her father arranged a marriage to a suitable nobleman, and after she tearfully left him at the altar, he mounted an attack and took the kingdom by force.
The princess blames herself for this, and I gotta admit that I kinda like this fairy tale template: like so many girls in the old stories who commit a transgression (opening the locked chamber, looking at her mysterious husband by candlelight, eating the forbidden fruit) our protagonist has to work to fix her mistake. But in this case, the very thing that started the problem – her fighting prowess and the sense of agency that came with it – is the very thing that gets her out of the mess that follows.
But the delivery of this idea is just one fight scene after another, complete with clunky one-liners. And endless fight scenes get kind of boring after a while. It’s also the sort of fighting that is more girl power (with platitudes like: “fight with your heart as well as the blade”) than anything to do with the terrible emotional cost of taking another person’s life.
For every neat moment in which the princess weaponizes her femininity (throwing down her pearls for the soldiers to trip on, stabbing someone in the eye with her hairpin) there’s something completely idiotic (she holds her breath and hides in a bath when there’s a perfectly serviceable curtain that would have provided cover right there).
All the familiar tropes are present and accounted for: deliberately dislocating a body part, hitting someone with a handy frying pan, ripping up a dress for better manoeuvrability, dozens of wounds that are just shrugged off. Of course the princess anachronistically objects to an arranged marriage, and of course she proves her worth through accumulating a substantial body count.
In lieu of characterization or plot, the film got me thinking about a. a female character’s worth being based in her ability to do violence, b. the counterpoint to this being people moaning about “traditional gender roles” and how it makes me want to cheer on any depiction of a girl beating people up just to spite them, and c. the performative nature of films like these, which are as deep as a paddling pool and end with everyone literally going: “yaas queen!” after the princess’s father sees the error of his ways and makes her his heir.
And yet taking all that into account, this film has not pretended to be anything less than mindless fun, and was probably watched by approximate twelve people in total. So what’s the point of nitpicking?
The highlight is Veronica Ng, who played the ill-dated sister of Rose Tico in The Last Jedi and the ill-fated girlfriend of Charlize Theron in The Old Guard. It’s nice just to see her in a substantial role, along with Olga Kurylenko as the bad girl character who always turns up in these types of films. Whip? Check. Leather outfit? Check. Sadomastic tendencies? Check. Elsewhere, Dominic Cooper picks up his cheque and doesn’t look back.
There’s also a rather unfortunate running gang of an overweight soldier having to run all over the castle in search of the escaped princess, and some glaring greenscreen and cramped sets (like so many other movies these days, which exist in stark contrast to the visuals of the seventies/eighties films discussed above).
In short, I never know what to make of films like these. But somewhere out there, a teenage girl is watching this and it’s becoming her new favourite movie. So let’s go with that. It also makes for one-half of a perfect double-feature with Damsel. Speaking of...
Damsel (2024)
This movie was everything I expected it to be, and I’m not sure what to do with that. It occurs to me that I’ve been giving YA a hard time lately, and that’s probably not fair since I am no longer a YA.
Complaining about it makes me one of those dickheads who whine about how not everything is for them anymore, even though this genre often covers material I am interested in: retold fairy tales, female protagonists, and elaborate deconstructions of fantasy clichés. (Or fantasy clichés that are played completely straight. Does the princess of this film wince while she’s being laced into a corset? You betcha!)
Half of me feels like we’ve reached peak “heroine picks up sword and kicks ass!” – especially when it’s used lieu of any actual characterization. But then a tradwife or an incel will pop up and start moaning about traditional femininity and the masculinization of women and I immediately start wanting at least fifty more ass-kicking, sword-wielding princesses.
That’s the paradox in me. I’m tired of manufactured girl power rhetoric and overused YA tropes... but I don’t want a return to the old days either. Dream scenario: a female character thrown into an unlikely situation who has to use her wits, charisma and/or emotional intelligence to survive instead of physical prowess.
Which is... kind of what happens here? Princess Elodie initially ticks off a lot of the genre’s prerequisites for a twenty-first century teenage heroine: she’s a free spirit who wants to see the world, has a tendency to speak her mind to the detriment of good decorum, and is possessed of a social conscience that’s demonstrated in an introductory scene in which she’s chopping wood and selling her curtains to feed hungry villagers. The only thing missing is an interest in science that ultimately has no narrative purpose.
And look, it’s not like I don’t want her to do these things, but it’s all presented in such a trite manner. Like the princess of The Princess, she bristles at the thought of an arranged marriage to a complete stranger that positions her as little more than an object to be bought and sold, but on realizing that the wedding will fill the coffers of her father’s treasury, she decides to go through with it for the sake of duty.
And it turns out that she and the prince hit it off! He’s handsome and charming, and the pair bond over horse riding and overbearing parents and wanting to see the world. The gorgeous palace ain’t bad either, even if the foreboding soundtrack is screaming at the audience that something is very wrong here.
Once the inevitable has happened, we can get down to the business of the actual movie. (Seriously, the trailers make no secret of the film’s twist, though it would be wonderful to watch this with an unjaded young viewer who has no idea where it’s all heading). And it’s that this point Elodie comes into her own. The film’s second act is its strongest, after she's thrown into a cave network as a sacrifice to the local dragon, and forced to rely on speed, agility, observational skills, quick decision making, sheer dumb luck, and (most poignantly) the clues and tools left behind by all the other girls that have been offered up to the creature, in order to survive. Not fight, just survive.
And Millie Bobby Brown doesn’t stint on the ordeal that Elodie faces. There’s lots of inelegant screaming and groaning with pain and panicked gasping as she negotiates the claustrophobic tunnels. And because the film took the time to set up her rapport with the prince and relationship with her father, their betrayal really fucking hurts.
But Elodie is brave and resourceful and clever and determined, and it’s a while before we get to the inevitable “heroine grabs a sword and demonstrates skills that she’s very unlikely to have been trained in” sequence. (I mean, at least The Princess depicted those training montages on-screen).
Unfortunately, it fumbles a little bit towards the finish line. Not just because of the sword fighting, but because it falls into some predictable twists that don't get examined in any meaningful way.
Would it shock you to learn that the dragon isn’t the villain it first appears to be, but is only demanding sacrifices because her eggs were destroyed by an evil king centuries ago? Of course it wouldn’t, and this has the side-effect of simplifying the central conflict of the story. I was hoping the film would delve into the nitty-gritty of the ethical conundrum that the kingdom faces (you know I like an ethical conundrum): whether to sacrifice young girls or face total annihilation.
The queen attempts to justify the system, stating that the deaths of three girls is worth it to save hundreds more, that it’s weakness to show guilt over the situation, and that a ruler must do what needs to be done. But what if the dragon had truly been a mindless beast? What if some of the girls had volunteered? What would have made their sacrifice a justified pay-off for the sake of the greater good? Elodie is willing to marry a perfect stranger for the wellbeing of her people, but not to die for it – which is fair enough, but it would have been interesting to explore the issue of The Needs of the Many a little more.
Instead, they take the easy way out. The queen is evil and the dragon is a wronged victim, despite the fact she’s spent centuries killing young girls and actively enjoying doing so. No room for nuance or shades of grey here, much less an examination on whether it’s a good idea to fly off into the sunset with the mass-murdering, fire-breathing creature that killed your dad and countless other innocent people across the generations.
Not helping is that aside from the scenery porn we’re treated to when Elodie first arrives in the dragon’s kingdom, we don’t really get a sense of what the queen is trying to protect. We see virtually nothing of the people that live there, and so don’t get a sense of loss when the whole thing is burned to the ground at the film’s conclusion.
To be fair, this is a common problem when it comes to these types of stories; the narrative weighs up a single person’s life against “the greater good” but never give us a chance to SEE what that greater good looks like; what the villain is actually trying to protect. “For the people,” the queen keeps saying, but they’re just a faceless crowd.
This whole set up could have benefited from some closer study, but hey – it is what it is. And I did appreciate the way the story handles the prince. He’s complicit in his mother’s schemes, albeit reluctantly, especially when she turns her attention to Elodie’s little sister. And yet... if you recognize something as wrong and feel bad about doing it, but not enough to actually try and put a stop to it, then on some level you’re worse than the unrepentant enablers of the entire system. So I’m glad they didn’t let him off the hook for his crimes, while still allowing him a Face Death With Dignity scene to send him off with.
There are some other nice threads throughout. I liked that Elodie’s stepmother subverts the usual characterization you’d expect from a fairy tale stepmother, and that the backbone of the film is the bond between Elodie and her little sister Floria (though I rolled my eyes when she told her older sister: “I hope I’m half as beautiful someday as you are today” instead of something like: “bye snot face” when Elodie heads off on her honeymoon. They don’t quite grasp the dynamic of a sibling relationship here).
Shohreh Aghdashloo provides the perfect dragon voice: deep and raspy and menacing, while Ray Winstone is the Dominic Cooper of this film: he turns up, does his job, and cashes his pay check. Both Robin Wright and Angela Bassett look and sound great, even if their presence largely feels like stunt casting (I love them both, but their characters really could have been played by anyone).
In short, movies like this and The Princess get routinely mocked, and not without good reason – but I’m glad they exist nonetheless, if not just to track the progress of the female-lead fantasy genre and its use of the familiar tropes.
(That said, Damsel is what we got instead of Enola Holmes 3, and I definitely would have preferred the latter film).
Inspector Lynley: Season 3 (2004)
After a while, it’s hard to know what to say about procedurals. If a show is doing its job right, then it’s settled into an effective formula and is delivering on the goods. Which Inspector Lynley is doing. Nathanial Parker and Sharon Small as Lynley and Havers make for an effective team with subtle chemistry, who understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and respond accordingly.
The final episode of the previous season ended with Havers taking some deeply unorthodox measures in pursuit of a criminal, which means that this season opens with her facing a demotion. Lynley is in her corner, but it’s still a humiliation, especially since Havers doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong.
Now, there are two character types that always get on my nerves. The first are characters that just won’t get out of their own way. The second are characters that think they can flout the rules and do whatever they want, and because they’re such a prodigy, no one ever calls them out or punishes them for their behaviour. It’s to Sharon Small’s credit (and the characterization provided to her by the writers) that in many ways she embodies both these tropes, and yet manages to transcend them.
Of course, it helps that absolutely everybody except Lynley treats her like crap, and she’s forced to face the consequences of every bad decision she makes (even the justified ones). In this season’s final episode, she ends up taking a bullet for an unrepentant killer. The woman just can’t catch a break!
Lynley gets his own little arc this season, involving his wife Helen who gets pregnant and then suffers a miscarriage after she’s targeted by a suspect in one of his cases. Does it ever frustrate you when you’re 100% on the female character’s side when it comes to the stress she’s under and the lack of support she’s getting, only for the actress to be so unappealing on some indescribable level that you just want her to go away? That’s such an awful thing to feel, but I honestly can’t see the point of Helen’s character, and Lesley Vickerage plays the part so dourly that it’s difficult to summon up much feeling for her.
As with the last two seasons, this one contains four mysteries, each split into two parts, giving us eight episodes altogether. Sadly, there are no astonishing appearances from any eventual A-listers at the beginning of their Hollywood careers this season, though I did spot Jemma Redgrave (currently still playing Kate Stewart in Doctor Who).
It also amuses me that although this was released in 2004, it has the vibe of a series made in the eighties. I can’t explain it: something about the grainy quality of the film, or the technology which has already already dated so profoundly in the twenty years since it aired? Either way, it makes for an accidental nostalgia trip.
Elementary: Season 4 (2015 – 2016)
Does your protagonist require an imperious and disconcerting father played by an established character actor with gravitas who won’t prove to be too expensive? Your options are Victor Garber or John Noble. Elementary went with the latter, and liked him so much that they put him in the opening titles.
It was only a matter of time before Sherlock’s father turned up, as in many ways he’s the impetus for the show’s entire premise, having been the one who hired Joan as a sober companion for his wayward son. And after Sherlock relapsed at the conclusion of the third season after the kidnapping of his sponsor Alfonso at the hands of his former drug-dealer, it seems an opportune time for Holmes Senior to finally make his debut.
And to the show’s credit, he keeps you guessing. John Noble easily slips into “unnerving” territory, with that low silky voice and carefully-controlled expression. He emanates power and wealth, and you can sense that even the likes of Sherlock and Joan are just a tad intimidated around him – or at least on the backfoot. Several scenes hint that the man is involved in underhanded dealings, though yet others indicate he’s sincere about his commitment to Sherlock’s recovery. I’ll admit, I had no idea where any of this was going. By the end of this season’s run, I still don’t.
As with Inspector Lynley, there’s not much more to say when it comes to procedurals. The whole point of them is that the case is solved by the forty-five-minute mark, and you can go forth knowing that the world is a slightly better, less chaotic place. At least in fiction. But there are some good episodes across this season, most notably one involving a missing girl who is returned to her family decades after she first disappeared, who might well be an imposter (played by Ally Ioannides from Into the Badlands) and another that delves into the very-real world of vigilantes who dress up like superheroes in order to fight crime.
However, I get the distinct feeling that the writers were gearing up for the return of Moriarty and had to change their plans in a hurry when Natalie Dormer proved to be unavailable (I’m assuming she was tied down on Game of Thrones?) I honestly have no idea if she ever returns to the show in-person, but she’s obviously a huge drawcard to the mythos of the show and it’ll be a shame if she’s left languishing in prison forever. Not that she technically doesn’t deserve it.
As ever, the show is at its strongest when it’s focusing on the relationship between Holmes and Watson – which means I wasn’t particularly interested by Sherlock’s new girlfriend, a neurodivergent computer programmer, or Joan’s long-lost half-sister, who approaches her under false pretences. I just didn’t care, especially since there’s a good chance we’ll never see either one of them again.
So I’m going to take a short hiatus from Elementary. I’ll probably return before the year is out, but I need a change of pace and so far I’m loving the first season of The Tudors in all its deranged absurdity.
Middle School Mystery was one I always had a fondness for, even if it surely had one of the dumbest adults in the teacher who a) didn't realise that Claudia wasn't the cheater because she could immediately identify how she got one question wrong, and b) didn't just get both of them to retake the test immediately. But I always loved Janine going to bat for Claudia!
ReplyDeleteI've always meant to watch The Slipper and the Rose, which I only really know as being a plot point in Frost/Nixon.
The ghost writer tries to cover for the bad teacher by having him be a sub that doesn't know Claudia that well, but yeah - she's failed by every single adult in this book.
DeleteI'd recommend Slipper/Rose, for the novelty at least. In many ways it's an odd duck. But Panna a Netvor was this month's more interesting fairy tale adaptation for me at least.